CHAPTER 10: Secrets
2185 CE
Since I wasn't on the shore team for this visit to the Citadel, my first encounter with Kasumi Goto was when she casually decloaked next to me as I was rereading some of my old work.
'First editions of your works sell for quite a pretty penny; but the real big ticket items from authors are unfinished manuscripts...' Kasumi pronounced.
'That's not the real big ticket item from me, and both know it.' I chuckled.
'Your real calendar...' Kasumi admitted.
'All up here. So unless you've got a way of stealing memory...' I disappointed her.
'As a matter of fact, I do. Have you ever heard of a graybox?' Kasumi asked.
'Some sort of Cybernetic video recorder, wasn't it? Sees what your eyes see?' I asked.
'So you don't know everything, then! There were rumors...' Kasumi teased.
'Not every rumor has a basis in fact.' I replied, calmly.
'A graybox records memories, not video. It records your recollections just as you remember them. An arms dealer named Donovan Hock killed my partner for his. I want to steal it back.' Kasumi explained.
'Well, I'm not sure if you're aware of this Ms. Goto, but I happen to be a rather famous weapon designer and badass myself.' I grinned.
'I read your profile in Badass Weekly. That story about Thessia wasn't true, was it?' Kasumi asked with unbridled curiosity.
'Both of the Thessia stories were true. But out of curiosity, which one are you asking about? The time I used an Asari commando captain as a blunt object to defeat her entire squad? Or the time that Matron attacked me on that vid show because she claimed the music my band and I were making had turned her daughter into an Ardat-Yakshi?'
'I found the recordings, so I know the vid-show was true, but how did the Asari commando squad work?' Kasumi asked.
'So, Asari are really bad at war. Everyone agrees, even the Asari themselves; if they didn't they wouldn't have needed the Turians, or the Krogan for that matter. But they do have the one strategy!' I announced with a dramatic pause.
Seeing the easy smile on Kasumi's face I knew I had her hooked. 'Send a small team of maidens armed with guns to a specific location to kill everything in sight; they're really good at that. It won't win them a war, but they've practiced sending small groups of maidens to murder everything in sight for millennia. They're actually really good at it, and like you Humans say, if the only tool you have is a small group of Asari maidens, every problem looks like a nail.'
Kasumi laughed as I continued.
'So, this was back during the rebellions. A bunch of Asari had destroyed a hospital my clan ran and killed all our doctors including my favorite sister. We weren't even part of the rebellions at the time. They did it just because they wanted to wipe out our medical capacity. Asari don't adhere to the Geneva convention, you see. They don't treat doctors like they do on Earth.' I muttered, bitterly. That had been an extremely unwelcome surprise.
'That's why I decided that I was going to send them a message. I was going to sack the Temple of Athame.' I revealed.
'Are you sure? I read up on the rebellions; the Temple of Athame was never sacked during them.' Kasumi asked, curious.
'Yeah, it turns out that in addition to waging war, Asari are also really shitty at making readable maps. I ended up sacking this ancient Asari pleasure palace instead. It was mostly full of about 500 years worth of Asari erotic iconography and handicrafts. Apparently it was worth a fortune. I broke all of it and burned the palace to the bedrock. It was then, while I was staring at the ashes of this pleasure palace, that the intrepid squad of Asari maidens sent to prevent me from doing the thing I just finished doing arrived.' I revealed.
'Aaaah. They were too late to thwart your evil plans.' Kasumi realized, excited.
'Not that they weren't going to give it the old Asari try anyway.' I declared. It had been an extremely surreal experience. They even gave a speech about stopping my evil aims and saving Asari culture from my ravages. Honestly it almost made me sound like the villain in a pornographic Krogan rebellion parody vid. It ruined the whole mood of the fight for me and my Krannt.
'So how did you end up training in your ability to use Asari as blunt force objects?' Kasumi asked, not quite certain how one thing led to the next, I guess.
'So I had just spent something like three months figuring out the exact optimal way to kill one Salarian by using another Salarian as a thrown weapon. It didn't quite take a thousand hours of practice to perfect, but it was probably close.' I admitted.
That was a fun summer, I remembered.
'The Salarians, were still trying to kill me back then. We'd catch them every so often and offer them back to their government as part of a prisoner exchange. The Salarians denied their affiliation every time I reached out. Now I knew that the Salarians were STG, and the Salarians knew that they were STG, but since the Salarians weren't willing to confirm it there wasn't actually much I could do. We didn't have long term jails fit to house Salarian assassins, so keeping them around long term wasn't possible. And if they weren't government agents launching unsanctioned operations on non-combatants than that meant they were warriors challenging me to the death, and while I could certainly claim that they were too weak to kill me and set them free, the reality was they'd probably get lucky eventually, so I couldn't just release them. Luckily, I could make everyone happy by killing them. The Salarians were happy that I didn't try and extract information from their agents. My Clan was happy to watch the Salarians die for their cowardice, and I was happy because I got to kill the people who kept trying to kill me.' I explained.
Kasumi nodded in complete and total understanding of the situation. Odd, for a human, but she's a pretty smart human, so maybe she just really has a really good grasp of diplomatic relations?
I blinked. 'Where was I?' I asked.
'Asari.' Kasumi prompted.
'Right. Asari. So I had just perfected my skill with Salarians, and one my my Krannt wondered if, since Asari are more sturdy than Salarians, if it might be possible to be get an more efficient ratio of deaths using Asari. Anyway, to make a long story short, it totally is possible, but you have to hold them by the ankles when you swing them. Asari will instinctively use their biotics to protect their head and brace their neck if they can see a high impact coming. This means that when you swing them around like clubs, Asari heads get to be incredibly hard and robust. In other words, they're a really great weapon of war. And that's without any other instinctive biotic discharges that they might unleash while you're using them like a flail. When the captain of the Asari Commando unit stopped speaking, I rushed over to grab her by the ankles and just started using her to beat her other teammates with. Honestly, results of the experiment were kind of surprising! She was the only survivor, which is not a result I would have predicted going in.' I admitted.
'What happened after that?' Kasumi asked.
'I went home.' I stated.
Kasumi looked confused.
'I couldn't find the temple I was looking for, none of the Asari maps of their own damn planet were worth anything, I didn't have a map to the Temple of Athame that wasn't made by an Asari, and I didn't have any reason to stay. The Asari banned me from the Temple of Athame for life for that. Something about not trusting valuable cultural relics around someone who had stated an intent to destroy them, which, by the way, I didn't actually state. I mean, obviously I stated my intention to attack the temple of Athame, but I was planning on looting it, not burning it down. But just because I burned down a pleasure palace suddenly I couldn't be trusted around their important cultural artifacts.' I complain.
'The Asari really are sore losers, aren't they? They banned me completely from Thessia after I stole the Rings of Alune. How did you manage to avoid that?' Kasumi asked, curious.
'I didn't. They banned me completely too, they just rescinded the ban after they stole the Protheans I revived on Krelltopia from me and realized that I was right about the Protheans the entire time. After that the University of Thessia lobbied to have my ban overturned so that they could ask me to lecture there. Still banned from the temple of Athame though...' I admitted.
'Huh. Don't think that'll work for me. I'd never let them steal the Protheans in the first place.' Kasumi decided.
'Yeah, sorry. Asari are just sore losers. Nothing you can do about it.' I commiserated.
2185 CE
'I LOVE FANCY HUMAN PARTIES!' I bellow, still dressed in my custom tailored three-piece suit, as I throw a Salarian at another Salarian in Donovan Hock's treasure room. My Omnitool is recording all of this and streaming it straight to Admiral Hackett.
Technically I'm not part of Shepard and Kasumi's mission to find her ex-lover's graybox. I'm part of a separate and totally unrelated mission to investigate the theft of important cultural artifacts by notorious smuggler Donovan Hock. The head of the Statue of Liberty alone is more than enough to get Hock locked up for life.
This idiot stole from pretty much every single culture. Even the Turians are going to be upset at him, and they don't even like art! Oh man, I introduced some Turians to the concept of Human protest songs from the Vietnam war era, Fortunate Son by Credence Clearwater Revival. You'd think I kidnapped the Primarch and dangled him naked over a thresher maw over a live vid broadcast!
I caught one of the birds on video saying that the entire band should be shot for dereliction of duty and fomenting negative morale.
That went over real well with the Asari, who viewed the song as an indication of the Humans' inherent drive towards peace and Asari-style enlightened democracy and civilization.
That was an excellent three months of the news cycle before it all blew over.
Anyway, I'm trying to take these jerks out in hand to hand because I don't want any of the Krogan statues in here to get destroyed. Also the human art, I guess.
Not sure what I'm going to do with them, but since we Krogan don't exactly have a unified planetary government I'm calling dibs.
I think I'll lend them to that cute little History museum on Eden Prime. They mostly show Prothean relics, but I'm sure they'll jump at a find like these babies. Or maybe I'll give them to Wrex and have them be his problem, instead?
Of course, we need to kill Hock first. And make sure that Kasumi doesn't filch the damn things back from me.
I figure the less secure I make them the less likely she'll want to steal them.
I hope anyway.
Huh. Is that a kakliosaur fossil? I haven't seen a kakliosaur since the Salarians wiped them out in the Rebellions! I loved riding those things! Man, they had a temper.
Lemme just yoink that, then.
Humans really do throw the best parties.
2185 CE
With Hock blown the fuck up, the Alliance, Asari, Salarians, and even the Turians descend on the party and lock up all the staff. I take the opportunity as the official representative of 'the Krogan Government' to take all the statues of the Krogan and the Rachni. I'm not sure why I got away with that. It could be because everyone just assumed that I'm the closest thing the Krogans have to a government; or it could be that no one wanted to argue with an angry Krogan with an assault rifle over relics that were clearly Krogan in origin. I'm betting it's probably that second one.
I've decided that these are going to be Wrex's problem. I'm gonna drop them off on him when we visit Clan Urdnot. Get his approval to host them on Eden Prime and transfer them back once he builds a place on Tuchanka.
Of course all of that requires that we survive until then. A point which Zaeed seems willfully ignorant of.
Honestly, blowing up a refinery while you're still inside of it. That maniac definitely should have been born a Krogan.
Shepard seems to have secured his loyalty through the simple expedient of not giving a fuck about the refinery workers, which is fine. Very mission oriented. Still, the lack of empathy is troubling for future developments. I'm going to need to go on the Maelon mission; just to be sure.
I wrote up a list of important Normandy upgrades for Shepard. Stuff to prioritize. Anti-boarder defenses are one. Cyclonic Barrier Technology for our Shields, Silaris Armor Tech for our hull, and the Thanix Cannon for our guns also headline the list; along with a GX12 Thermal Pipe. That venting problem isn't one I want popping up early, so it makes sense to solve it now rather than later.
Shepard took Mordin and Garrus down to help her deal with Project Overlord, which made sense. I know Overload, and technically I'm a combat engineer, but I rely a lot more on the combat side of that equation than the engineering side. I don't begrudge her the choice. You can't gain the loyalty of your Squad if you never work with them, after all.
With that done, and an assignment to place a memorial for the Normandy on Alchera that Garrus and I both tagged along to help with also completed, that just left a few scattered assignments like tracking down a VI virus with Jacob and Garrus.
Honestly it was all pretty relaxing.
The night before we were set to pick up Jack, I told the crew the story of my 'duel' with my Ex-wife on that space station. I ended it with an explicit moral: 'If you're going to wreck a space station, make sure you're on the outside first.'
Mordin cornered me after dinner.
'I've read your work. Poetry extremely compelling, but your Prothean research is frequently unsourced. Why?' Mordin inquired.
'Because the target audience all know what my source is.' I explain.
Mordin paused. 'Target audience Asari Matriarchs, Council, Liara T'Soni, and Human Alliance. What would link them? Related to your calendar?'
I shook my head. 'Almost completely unrelated, I think. You know how Shepard has a Prothean beacon and Cipher in her head?'
Mordin nodded, following my explanation.
'Shepard's not the only one. Nor the first.'
Mordin's eyes widened in a notable expression of shock for a Salarian.
'I picked them both up almost 30 years ago to the day, actually.'
'The incident on Krelltopia. You kept your excavation license despite insufficiently guarding your finds against pirates and smugglers.'
'Hah! Pirates and Smugglers? You don't actually believe that line, do you?' I laughed.
'No. Why I asked. Seeking clarification.' Mordin agreed.
'Pirates and smugglers aren't led by Asari like Tela Vasir.'
'The Spectre?'
I nodded. 'I unearthed a Prothean facility on Eden Prime. Meant to house an army in Cryostasis so that they could rebuild the Prothean empire once the Reapers left. Seems like it was their go to strategy. They tried it on Ilos too, to no success.'
'Beacons already existed on Eden Prime. Such a facility would almost certainly have one.' Mordin agreed.
'It had more than that. It also had Protheans, still preserved in Cryosleep. I saved about 15 of them.'
'And the Asari abducted them.' Mordin filled in the blanks.
'Pretty sure STG grabbed my beacon. Can't see why the Asari would want it. They already have their own.' I revealed, flipping the board. Not that I thought the Salarians would do anything about it, Hard to reveal your political adversary is hording Prothean Techn when you're hoarding the exact same tech after all.
'Fascinating information. For a Krogan so heavily surveilled, you hold a surprising amount of secrets.' Mordin observed.
I laughed. 'Anyway, that's why I don't cite my sources. They all know my information comes from my experience with the beacon and the cipher I got from the Protheans, but as long as I don't actually tell them that's where it came from they politely ignore the fact that I had a beacon in the first place. I don't get yelled at again for losing a beacon, not to mention the living Protheans. They don't have to fund an investigation into themselves for stealing my artifacts. Everyone wins.' I explain.
'Fascinating. Will have to reread your work on the Protheans with this knowledge in mind.' Mordin declared.
'Actually, that reminds me. The Collectors.'
'Yes?' Mordin asked.
'They're Protheans. Heavily modified, like how husks were once humans but are no longer. Not sure how useful that bit of trivia is, but it isn't doing me any good just knowing it.' I admitted.
'Fascinating. Will have to incorporate new data into my work to counteract the seeker swarms. I don't suppose you have any Prothean medical analysis?'
'Never got a chance. The Asari might have some, given their haul from raiding my labs. Might wanna talk to your friends in STG about it. The Reapers are invading next year. You might wanna make yourselves as prepared for that as you can manage. And the only way to get the Cipher without Asari help is from a living Prothean.'
'Access to whom would require Asari help.' Mordin noted.
'Well, that seems more like your problem than mine.' I smiled.
'Agreed. Have a pleasant sleeping period.'
Mordin really is fun to talk to. I'll have to do this again.
Author's Note: So there's Kasumi's Loyalty Mission, along with laying more groundwork for something that is going on in the background. I don't know how many of you have been paying attention to the Chapter Titles, but they're all songs. This one's by OneRepublic. Normally I wouldn't call it out so explicitly, but there are something like a thousand different songs with the same title, so I figured I had to.
